


If You Wrong Us

by the_random_writer



Series: Separated Twins [10]
Category: Bourne (Movies), RED (Movies), The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Brothers, CIA, Conspiracy, Crossover, Gen, Revenge, SVR, Treason, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 07:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10962192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: A crossover where William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy' are identical twins.Born in Berlin to an American mother and a Russian father, the twins were separated at the age of ten by their parents' divorce. William went to the United States with their mother, while Kirill went to the Soviet Union with their father.Someone is trying to frame William for treason. Solving the mystery and clearing his name will need the assistance of some old friends.Takes place in April 2011, with an opening flashback to the events of RED in December 2009.





	If You Wrong Us

The ancient Cheika trundled away, carrying its remarkable band of chaos-causing misfits with it. William waited until it had vanished, then quickly turned his attention back to the man slumped on the filthy ground. Kneeling down, he checked the Vice President's pulse. It was slightly erratic, but nice and strong. Nobody else was dying today, not even the overprivileged jerk responsible for the situation.

"Hang in there, sir," he told the bleeding politician, pressing firmly on the wound. "The Secret Service are on their way. We'll get you to a hospital as soon as we can."

Stanton let out a groan. "Can't believe Alexander shot me," he muttered in an offended tone. "I'm the Vice President of the United States of America. I'm not supposed to get shot. I'm supposed to have people to handle that for me."

In the distance, rotor blades whumped and a symphony of sirens blared—the cavalry was about to arrive.

William swore under his breath. There was one other thing he still needed to do, and he didn't have a great deal of time. He looked Stanton straight in the eye and said, "Sir, we need to agree on what we're going to tell the cops and your Secret Service team about what happened here today."

The Vice President pulled a frown. "The hell are you talking about?"

"When they come to debrief you once you're out of surgery and ready to talk, I need you to _not_ tell them I shot Cynthia Wilkes. I need you to pin her death on one of the kidnappers instead. Marvin Boggs is the easiest choice." In saying that, William wasn't trying to pick on the man. Marvin had cheerfully offered to take the blame for Wilkes' demise, pointing out that he intended to be 'dead' himself by the end of the week.

"And why the hell would I ever do that?" Stanton demanded, laughing slightly.

"Because if you forget I shot Cynthia Wilkes, I'll forget where I stashed the Guatemala file."

Stanton wasn't laughing now. "You've seen the file," he said, making it sound like a serious crime. Which in Stanton's opinion, it probably was.

"Seen it and read it," William replied.

"So, you know what happened in eighty-one."

William answered with a curt nod; he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge what he'd read out loud. He'd served in the Marine Corps himself, so he understood how hard it could be not to panic under fire, but this creep hadn't simply panicked, he'd completely, _totally_ lost his mind. Because of him, a village full of innocent women and children had died.

"You're assuming there are no other copies," Stanton said. "And that it's not stored in some CIA or FBI computer system."

This time, William shook his head. "Dunning and Wilkes took care of that angle already. There's no electronic version of it, and the folder I have is the only physical copy left. So, nobody else will find out what you did in that village unless you or I happen to tell them."

"You cover for me, I cover for you," the Vice President murmured.

"Exactly."

It wasn't the deal William wanted to make—he would rather see Stanton go to jail as an accessory to murder instead—but given what he himself had just done to his boss ( _and_ to the man at the Jackson house), he didn't have much right to complain.

"What the hell do I tell the cops and my protection team about them?" Stanton asked, gesturing at the cluster of bodies lying twenty feet away.

"Leave out the business with the file, but other than that, just tell them the truth. Tell them you found out Dunning and Wilkes were killing people to safeguard you, but you have no idea why. As much as you can, let the corrupt, dead people take the blame." Instead of the corrupt, living people. "When they eventually come to talk to me, I'll back you up, say the same thing."

Stanton gave him a wary look. "How do I know you won't try to use the file against me?"

William suppressed the urge to punch the other man in his wound. "Sir, you just watched me shoot my boss in the head," he crabbily pointed out. "You're the Vice President of the United States of America, and I'm some mid-level guy from Langley. With all due respect, how _stupid_ would I have to be?"

"But you only shot her to protect me. Nobody would blame you for that."

Except that he hadn't—he'd shot her to protect Sarah and Frank.

"True," William lied, "but it would mean a formal investigation, and I think we'd both sleep a lot better at night if that didn't happen." Especially when he considered who a formal investigation was likely to be conducted by, at least on the Company side. He was already going to be in a world of pain because of this asinine operation—he really didn't want to hand Carrington's biddable IA poodle another way to take him down.

"Good point."

William heard a fast-moving vehicle slew to a halt on the gravel outside. "So, do we have a deal?" he asked.

Stanton was silent for a few moments, then sighed and held out a trembling, blood-covered hand. "We have a deal."

********************

"The truth will come out in the end," Kirill said to his twin. "You just have to give it some time."

"That's easy for you to say," William complained. "You're not the one on the verge of being indicted for treason."

Kirill shook his head. "It won't come to that. Somebody in the IA group will put all of the pieces together, figure out where the money came from."

"There's a gap in your logic there, _bratishka_."

"Oh, what is that?"

"You're assuming somebody in the IA group _wants_ to figure out where the money came from."

"Holcroft cannot dislike you _that_ much."

"It's got nothing to do with how much she dislikes me," the older sibling explained. "She never takes risks, and she does everything by the book. And right now, the book is telling her I'm as guilty as sin."

"What about finding the truth?"

"She doesn't care about finding truth. She wants a rational explanation, the simpler and cleaner the better, and blaming those packs of money on me is as simple and clean as it gets."

Kirill sighed and furrowed his brows. He knew his older brother was right, but this wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Besides, there's something else you haven't considered," William calmly said.

"What?"

"Who Holcroft's mentor is."

Kirill grimaced. "Arthur Carrington," he muttered. One of their least favourite people.

"We both know how much Carrington hates us, and Holcroft's his obedient poodle, so wherever he leads, she automatically follows."

"Which means this current mess you are in is essentially all my fault, because of what I did in Berlin."

William shrugged. "Not like Carrington liked me that much even before you were on the scene," he said, pausing to finish his drink. "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Sure, there is," said William tartly. "You can bring me another beer."

"How many beers are you going to drink?"

"That depends. How many beers do you have?"

Kirill did a quick mental review—he'd restocked his fridge the previous night. "I have four bottles of Newcastle Brown and eight bottles of Yarpivo. Plus, a few of those wine coolers Catherine likes."

"Well, then. There's your answer."

"You are going to drink my girlfriend's wine coolers?"

William wrinkled his nose. "I do have _some_ standards, you know," he griped. "The wine coolers are safe. And I'm not a fan of Newcastle Brown, so I'm only going to drink your Yarpivo."

"What, _all_ of it?"

"Course not. That would be extremely irresponsible."

"It would, yes."

"I'm going to drink three quarters of it," William explained. "You can have the other two bottles."

"That is very generous of you."

"Damn right it is."

"I have never seen you drink six beers in one sitting before."

"You've never seen me on the verge of being arrested for espionage and treason before."

Kirill puffed out another sigh. "There is that, yes."

"Well?" William tetchily asked.

"Well, what?"

"Are you bringing me that next beer or not?"

"What the hell did your last slave die of?" Kirill indignantly complained. He'd never accepted his brother's commands when they were children living in West Berlin—he sure as hell wasn't accepting them now.

"I shot the useless prick in the head and rolled his body into a river with some weights attached to his feet," William retorted. "Next question?"

Muttering about despotic bullies, the younger brother drained his own drink, grabbed his sibling's empty container, rose from the Ikea recliner and sauntered into the kitchen next door. Morana, who had been slumbering blissfully on her cat stand next to the balcony door, suddenly came back to life and raised her dainty, fluffy head, no doubt hoping her human's trip to the kitchen would somehow end with her food bowl being filled.

Kirill glanced at the clock on the wall. She wasn't due to be fed for another hour, so she and her bottomless pit of a stomach were both shit out of luck for now. _Don't feel too bad, Princess_ , he silently said to his tiny pet as he threw the empties into the bin. _You are not the only member of the Cooper-Orlov clan running out of luck right now_. _Your poor Uncle Viko is having an even worse time of it than you_.

The week had started sedately enough, with a Monday morning full of the usual emails and meetings, but after lunch in the staff canteen, it had very rapidly gone downhill. A three-person team from Internal Affairs had cornered William on the way back to his office, and asked him to show them out to his car in the main employee parkade. His warning bells ringing, Kirill had trailed along behind. Nobody had told him he could, but nobody had told him he couldn't, either.

Once they had reached their destination, the IA team had taken William's car keys from him, then while the brothers watched from the wings, slowly but surely taken the six-year-old vehicle apart. They'd finally found what they were looking for when they removed the rear bumper panel—three large, vacuum-sealed bundles of money in a range of currencies and denominations. The amount involved wasn't enough to fund a new life in the Bahamas, but it was more than enough to raise some extremely troubling questions.

William had loudly protested his innocence; a natural reaction, given the money absolutely wasn't his.

Needless to say, the IA guys had _not_ been convinced. They'd taken William down to an interview room in one of the building's sub-basement floors, then over the space of the next four hours, demanded to know again and again who had provided him with the cash, and why he'd hidden it in his car.

It had taken until the end of the day before the IA guys had agreed to tell them what was going on. At eight o'clock the previous night, their tip line had logged an anonymous call, warning them that William was working for the Russians—passing on highly classified files in return for envelopes full of cash, which he was hiding in his car. The caller had spoken with a Russian accent, and claimed to be a member of the Washington embassy staff. Unfortunately, he'd hung up the phone before the IA technical team could trace the origin of the call, so there was no way to verify his location or claim. In the IA team's eyes, the fact that William's SUV _did_ contain the bundles of money was fairly damning evidence of his guilt. As was the fact the paper bands around the packs were stamped with the name of a major Russian bank.

The Company's response had been harsh and swift. It had immediately placed William on leave with full pay, pending the outcome of an internal security investigation. Carrington—the head of the IA division and a man whom William had long despised—had called for Kirill's suspension as well on the grounds of potential fraternal collusion. Unfortunately for Carrington (and fortunately for Kirill), there was absolutely no evidence to back that charge up. His own boss had pointed out that Kirill would have to be the stupidest man alive to collude with agents of a foreign power which had recently declared him dead.

They both knew what an internal investigation meant. A team of analysts and forensic accountants would now be sifting through every detail of William's life, looking for evidence he'd sold his country down the river. Evidence they would never find, for the extremely simple reason that it didn't exist. But even if the investigation found no other proof of his guilt, that didn't necessarily mean William would be instantly cleared to return to his former duties. Until he came up with an explanation for why his car contained all that cash, his integrity would remain in doubt. Without proof of a chargeable crime, the CIA might never be willing to go so far as to show him the door, but it would push him aside into a less strategic role where he would have no access to sensitive data, and therefore no ability to do any harm. William's flourishing Special Operations career would be well and truly dead in the water.

So here they were, two days later, sitting in Kirill's sunny apartment, throwing back a couple of beers and desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Kirill yanked at the door of the fridge. He counted the bottles, checking against his mental review, then grabbed a couple out of the door—a Newcastle Brown Ale for him and another Yarpivo for his brother.

"Let us review the facts again," he announced as he returned to his seat.

William accepted the tendered beer. "I don't want to review the facts again," he said in an exhausted tone. "I want to get drunk and feel sorry for myself."

"The Company believes you have sold out to the Russians."

"Jesus, Kir, do we have to do this tonight?"

Kirill gave his brother a glare. "Yes, Viko, we do. Now shut up, listen, focus and think," he ordered. "They have two items of evidence to support their theory. The anonymous phone call and the bundles of money they found in your car. Let us assume the two are connected. If we find out who planted the money, we have a link to whoever made the call. Or if we find out who made the call, we have a link to whoever planted the money. They may be the same person, but they may not."

"With you so far."

"Did the IA team check your car for prints?"

"They didn't say."

"We should ask. And if they won't tell us, your lawyer should ask. If they _did_ dust the car, whatever they found, you have a legal right to know." Kirill raised his brows at his twin. "You _do_ have a lawyer, don't you?"

William nodded. "Michelle's old roommate from school. The same woman who represented you at your hearing last year."

"Did you ask her for the family discount?"

"Funny."

Grinning, Kirill resumed his review. "We already know the Company was unable to trace the source of the call."

"Correct."

"But the caller apparently had a Russian accent, and claimed to be a security guard at the Russian embassy on Wisconsin."

"Also correct."

Kirill frowned, pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

"Something wrong, or is that just how you look when you're trying to think?"

"Does this not seem suspicious to you?" Kirill asked, ignoring his older brother's jibe. "If the tables were turned, and you were calling the SVR in Yasenevo to warn them they had a mole, would you tell them you were a guard at the US embassy in Moscow?"

"Course not. Especially if I actually was. I'd keep it short, say as little as I needed to say."

"My instructors told me the same. Be brief, be bright, be gone."

William frowned. "Isn't that the rule for making effective PowerPoint presentations?"

"Perhaps, but it works for lying to people as well."

"I'll take your word for it. I wouldn't know."

Kirill's response was a withering glare.

William flashed an apologetic grin. "So here's another question for you."

"What?"

"If our mystery caller _isn't_ on the embassy staff, but is actually just some asshole civilian playing a very dangerous game, what are the chance's he's really a Russian?" the older brother proposed. "What if that's all smoke and mirrors as well?"

The same concern had just popped into Kirill's head. "Which is why I am going to ask to listen to the recording IA made of the call. As you point out, just because the man claimed to be Russian doesn't mean he actually is. A lot of Slavic accents sound the same, especially to people who are not as familiar as them with me. If he is faking it, or from somewhere other than Russia, I will be able to tell."

"Whoever's behind this, it has to be someone who knows about our family background."

"What makes you say that?"

"The fact they chose to have me collude with the Russians," William explained. "They must have known an accusation like that would stick, because of who our father was. Wouldn't have been half as convincing if the setup had used the Iranians or the Chinese instead."

Kirill hadn't considered that. "So, who have you angered recently who knows about your Russian connections?" For security and personal reasons, when it came to their messed-up family story, they'd both told their friends and colleagues as little as they could get away with.

"And who can afford to throw away a few hundred grand," his brother added.

Or that, either. "So, who have you angered recently who knows about your Russian connections and who is also extremely rich?" Kirill re-stated.

William shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. Other than my father-in-law. But I've been pissing him off for almost ten years. It's not a recent development."

"It is not your father-in-law, Viko. Just because he doesn't completely approve of you doesn't mean he wants you to go to prison. It would harm Michelle and the children as much as you."

"You go tell him you're doing the dirty with his younger daughter, see how badly he takes the news, come tell me what you think of him then."

Kirill smiled. He'd already met Michelle and Catherine's parents once, at a barbecue back on the Fourth of July, but only as William's younger brother. He was in no rush to repeat the meeting as their younger daughter's boyfriend instead.

"I couldn't for the life of me come up with a list of people who meet those criteria," William said. "I'm totally stumped."

"Then let us put the phone call aside, and think about your vehicle instead."

"What about it?"

"Where has it been recently, that someone could have removed the bumper in order to hide the packets of money?"

"There's no room to put both of our cars in the garage, and Mike's is newer and nicer than mine, so my SUV usually sits out on the driveway overnight. Anyone who knows where I live and how to remove a bumper panel could easily have planted the cash."

"That doesn't help."

"Not really, no."

"Then I am as stumped as you. But let me see what I can find out at work tomorrow, yes?"

"Just be smart about it, okay?" William almost pleaded. "Don't go bulldozing around the sixth and seventh floors asking all kinds of threatening questions."

"I will be the soul of subtlety and discretion," Kirill said, using his most soothing tone. "I give you my word."

"Subtlety and discretion, right."

********************

They reconvened the following night—same place, same time—for an update on the situation.

"Did you find out if they dusted my car for prints?" William asked as he settled into his chair. Morana caressed his lap with her eyes until he held up a hand to warn her off, forcing her to sullenly retreat to her stand.

Kirill nodded. "McNamara allowed me to read the report. There were no prints on the rear half of the car at all. Which in itself is extremely suspicious."

"Means somebody wiped it clean."

"Yes."

"You'd think that would just back up my case. I mean, if I  _was_  actually hiding the cash, why would I wipe anything clean? It's my car, so I'd want my prints to be all over it."

Kirill wagged a finger at him. "You are trying to apply logic there,  _brat_ , and the CIA is sometimes not very good at logic. Especially when Arthur Carrington's team is involved."

"Yeah, good point."

"McNamara also allowed me to listen to the recording of the anonymous call."

"And?"

"And the man who made it is  _definitely_  Russian. From somewhere in the Moscow region, based on how he forms his vowels."

"So there goes our second lead," William grumbled, taking an angry swig of his beer.

Kirill shook his head. "Not necessarily."

"Oh?"

"During the call, the man used a few Russian words which I would consider slang. And not everyday slang, either, that you would hear in a regular conversation between regular Russian people."

"What kind of slang?"

"Military slang, that one would only learn by serving in highly specialized units. The kind of highly specialized units that don't officially exist."

William's blood ran cold. "You think the guy's _Zaslon_?" he asked, referring to the shadowy, SVR special operations group his brother had served in for almost a year.

"Yes, I do."

"That's a very interesting theory, but I'm not sure it really helps."

"On the contrary, I think it helps a great deal."

"How?"

"Think about it,  _brat_. We already know the caller is Russian, and now we know that he may also have served in a Zaslon unit."

"Yeah, and?"

"And while we don't know exactly where the call came from, we  _do_  know it originated somewhere in the metropolitan DC region."

William nodded, catching up. "Okay, yeah, I see where you're going with this now."

"If we cross reference the people in those two sets of data, the resulting list of names would probably be very short," Kirill pointed out. "Maybe half a dozen at most."

"Except you can't create that list of names unless you have access to both sets of data and a decent cross-analysis system. Which we don't."

" _We_ don't," the younger brother repeated, "but various other people do."

"Kir, don't even _think_ about trying to sweet-talk some gullible, lonely, desperate girl in the Data Analysis team into giving you access to Ariadne," William warned, referring to one of the Company's classified analysis systems. "The pay grade you're at, you're not even supposed to know it exists."

"Could we go to the Bureau instead?" Kirill asked with a suspiciously guilty look. "Their analysis systems are almost as good as the CIA's. Do you know anyone there who might be willing to help?"

"A couple of people, yeah, but not well enough to approach with something as tricky as this. And since my crimes"—William made quote marks in the air with his fingers—"took place on American soil, they'll have asked their Bureau buddies to help."

"What about your colleague in London?"

William shook his head. "He's just been posted to the British embassy in Jakarta, so he's out of the picture for now."

"Then we need to come at the problem from a different angle."

"How?"

"We go to the one man who can find out who our caller is, and who also happens to owe you a debt."

"Who the hell's that?"

"Your Russian acquaintance from the Stanton affair."

"Ivan Simonov?"

"Him, yes."

"Jesus, Kir," William exclaimed, laughing slightly. "That's not just approaching the problem from a different angle. That's sneaking up behind it in a deserted alley and bashing it over the head with a brick."

Kirill shrugged, as if bashing things over the head with a brick was an entirely acceptable act. "Perhaps, but it still makes a great deal of sense. Simonov divides his time between the embassy on Wisconsin and the Cultural Center up on Phelps, _and_ he is ex-KGB. If anyone in the metropolitan DC region knows the whereabouts of a Russian man with Zaslon service under his belt, it is him."

"As much as it pains me to admit it, that's actually a very good point."

Kirill huffed. "Why do you always sound so surprised when I come up with a good idea?"

"Still doesn't help, though."

"Why not?"

"Let's assume your theory is right, and not only could Ivan find out who our mystery caller is, but would also be willing to share the information with us."

"Yes?"

William threw up his hands. "How the _fuck_ do I actually go ask him for help? In case you'd forgotten, the Company thinks I'm in cahoots with the Russians. How the hell would it look if one of the people I turn to for help is the ex-KGB guy who now mans the desk at the Russian Cultural Center?"

"Perhaps I could approach him for you," Kirill suggested. "I have not been able to visit the Center yet. I wouldn't mind checking it out."

"Also not a good idea. You might not be under a formal investigation, but you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think Holcroft's not keeping an eye on you as well."

"Then we need someone to approach Simonov for us. Someone who knows him, and whom he knows in return. Someone we can both trust. Someone who would be happy to give the Company the middle finger."

William let out a quiet groan. "You're talking about Frank."

"I am talking about Frank."

"You think I should call him, tell him what we've figured out, then ask him to go talk to Ivan for us."

"I do, yes."

"It certainly couldn't make the situation any worse."

Kirill smirked. "If you had grown up in Moscow, you would not say that. You would know there is _always_ a way to make a situation worse."

"Maybe that's why the United States won the Cold War."

"It most certainly did no such thing."

"Well, the Soviet Union sure as fuck didn't," William protested, bemused by his brother's defence of a country he'd always struggled to love.

"I prefer to go with the view it took back the ball and went home."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Alcohol and sex," Kirill announced.

"Sorry, what?"

"What helps me to sleep at night," the younger twin repeated. "Alcohol and sex. Although, not necessarily in that order."

"I find that too much of one tends to be detrimental to the likelihood of the other."

"Really? I have never had that problem."

"You _do_ have a much higher capacity for alcohol than me," William acknowledged. And sex as well, according to some of Kirill's more hair-raising stories.

"Viko, I know Russian toddlers who have a higher capacity for alcohol than you."

"You calling me a lightweight?"

"Of course not."

"Okay, good. I think."

"But I do not think you should drink another four beers tonight, and not just because I have not had a chance to restock my supply of Yarpivo," Kirill warned. "Michelle is an extremely supportive wife, but even she has her limits. If you go home slightly pickled at midnight again, she will make you sleep in the garden shed."

William winced. "Hadn't thought of that."

"You know, _brat_ , if I do any more of your thinking for you, the Company will have to pay me your salary as well as mine."

"Wouldn't make any goddamn difference. Twice nothing is still nothing."

"I thought you were near the top of the GS Scale?"

"GS-15," William confirmed.

"And the pay is still shit?"

"Not _quite_ as shit, but still shit, yeah."

They fell silent for a few moments, then Kirill said, "So, Frank it is?"

"Frank it is," William confirmed. "I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"I could be deported to Russia and you could spend the rest of your life in a prison cell in Terre Haute?"

"Sorry I asked."

"Do you have a phone number for him?"

William nodded. "Gave it to me at Evanston, just before he ran off with the gang, case I ever needed to get back in touch."

"Let's give him a call."

"What, _now_?"

"As your lovely wife is so fond of saying, the poop will not scoop itself."

William leaned over, reaching into his trouser pocket.

Kirill laid a restraining hand on his arm. "But not from your phone," he warned. "If Holcroft has you under full observation, your handset may have been compromised. Whatever we say to Frank will not be breaking the law, but we don't need the Company listening in." Carrying his bottle of Newcastle with him, he rose from the couch and disappeared into the bedroom at the end of the hall. He reappeared a few moments later, carrying another device. "A prepaid phone," he explained, holding it out to his twin. "One I keep for emergency situations."

"What, like the time you called Catherine at work and asked her to meet you on her lunch break because you really needed to get laid?"

Kirill's cheeks turned a delicate shade of red. "She told you about that?"

"She told her older sister, and her older sister happens to be my wife. Not exactly rocket science."

"I suppose not, no," Kirill agreed. "But I did not use this phone for that. I have actually not used it at all, so this is as good a time as any to break it in."

William took the phone from his brother. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna go get some fresh air while I make the call," he said, pointing to the balcony door. "Clear some beer-induced cobwebs away."

"Go right ahead. I will dig out the flyer for the shawarma delivery place."

********************

To Kirill's surprise, his brother was back inside barely a minute later. "That was quick," he said. "Did you actually talk to Frank?"

William shook his head and flopped gracelessly onto the couch. "No answer, so I left a message for him. At least, I _think_ I left a message. The number went to a carpet cleaning company in Sidney, Ohio, of all things. Wherever the hell _that_ is. But the voice on the message was female, and I'm pretty sure it was Sarah's, so I left the cliff notes version of the problem, plus the number of the phone, asked him to call me back."

"This Frank sounds like a very interesting man."

William snorted. "Interesting doesn't even _begin_ to cover it."

"You should introduce us," Kirill proposed.

"You really think that's a good idea?"

"I do, yes. We will either like each other immensely, or try to kill each other on sight."

"I just worry it might be the latter. And if the two of you start knocking lumps out of each other, it's gonna end with a lot more than a black eye and a busted shoulder."

"You should introduce me to Ivan Simonov as well," Kirill then announced. "He sounds even more interesting than Frank."

William wasn't impressed. "Jesus, Kir, are you _nuts_?"

"What is nuts about this?"

"You're trying to persuade the CIA you can be trusted to do more than check the mail and take out the trash, and you want me to introduce you to a KGB agent?"

"Ex-KGB agent."

"There's no such thing as an ex-KGB agent."

"I am an ex-FSB agent."

"That's totally different."

"How?"

"For a start, how about the fact you're officially supposed to be dead?"

"Details, details," Kirill muttered, waving a dismissive hand.

Whatever retort his brother had been about to make was interrupted by the ringing of the prepaid phone.

William scooped it off the coffee table, glanced at the incoming number, then swiped to the right to answer the call. "Hello?" was all he initially said, then as he realized who it was, he smiled and added, "Hey, Frank, thanks for getting in touch. I guess you got my message." Silence for a few seconds, then, "No, I'm at my brother's apartment." Another pause and a frown. "Sure, I can do that." William laid the phone on the table and turned the speaker option on. "Can you hear us?" he asked.

"Loud and clear," came Frank's reply. "Your brother's there with you?"

"Yes, I am," Kirill said. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasure's all mine. Kirill, isn't it?" Frank asked, pronouncing the name the Russian way.

"That is me, yes."

"Before we say anything more, I need to know, you ever check your apartment for bugs?"

Kirill nodded, not that Frank could see. "A full sweep every week. A basic sweep every day."

"Really?" William asked, brows climbing towards his hair.

"Yes, really."

"Nice to know one of you takes this business seriously," Frank drily observed.

William huffed. "I'm taking it very seriously now," he said. "Trust me."

"So the Company thinks you're in cahoots with the Russians."

"Yeah."

"And you think I might be able to help."

"Kirill listened to the recording of the call that tipped the Company off, and he's pretty sure the person behind it is someone who's served in a Zaslon unit."

"Zaslon?" Frank repeated. "Now _there's_ a breed of soldier you don't ever want to mess around with."

Kirill grinned. "I will take that as a compliment."

"You were Zaslon?"

"For a year or so, yes."

"Ever work with a guy called Vladimir Burmistrov?"

"Yes, but he was killed a month or so after we met," Kirill replied. "Someone shot him coming out of his girlfriend's apartment in Paris."

"I know," Frank said. "I was the one who shot him."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. You mad?"

Kirill gave an unseen shrug. "He was an asshole, so not really, no."

"If I remember correctly, the girlfriend was quite a looker."

"An underwear model," Kirill recalled with a wistful sigh, "with legs all the way up to her ears. She once did a _beautiful_ spread for Agent Provocateur." He'd been handed some of Burmistrov's duties after the other man's death, but sadly, the girlfriend with the exquisite legs hadn't been part of the deal.

William rolled his eyes and thumped his bottle down on the table. "If you two have _quite_ finished reminiscing about the good old days, can we maybe get back to the problem at hand?"

"Apologies, _brat_. Continue, please."

"So you think the person who made the call has Zaslon experience," Frank recapped.

"We do, yeah," William said.

"But you can't access any decent databases or analysis systems, so you have no easy way to find out who that person might be."

"Exactly."

"And you think I do."

"Or one of your acquaintances from the Stanton affair."

There was a lengthy pause at the other end. "Since we're focusing on a Zaslon guy, this would be the acquaintance with a fondness for vodka, dancing and English assassins?"

"It would, yeah," William confirmed. "What do you think?"

"Not the best plan I've ever heard."

William's shoulders slumped.

"But not the worst one I've ever heard, either."

William perked up again. "Only problem is, I can't exactly give him a call, given what I've just been accused of. And neither can Kirill, given that he's supposed to be dead."

"So, you're wondering if I could relay the message to Simonov for you."

"Yeah."

The line fell silent again.

"You still there?" William eventually asked.

"Still here," Frank advised. "Just thinking the problem through."

"It would give you another chance to stab the Company in the back," Kirill helpfully volunteered.

A quiet snort, then Frank said, "Let me make a couple of calls, see what I can do. I'll call you back in one hour."

"One hour," William confirmed. "We'll be here."

The call dropped and Frank was gone.

********************

One hour later, they were finishing a pair of shawarmas and thinking about a second beer, and Morana had abandoned her perch in favour of her human's lap.

William gave the regal feline a glare. "Still can't believe you took her in," he muttered.

Kirill shrugged and scratched Morana behind her ears, triggering her engine-like purr. "I wanted a pet, and cats are easier to care for than dogs. Smarter as well."

"But cats are assholes," William complained.

Another shrug. "So am I."

Right on cue, the ring of the phone interrupted their conversation.

William accepted the call and immediately switched the speaker on. "This is Cooper," he curtly announced.

"Moses," came the equally terse response.

"Hey, Frank, good to hear from you. So, what's the situation?"

"I spoke to Victoria, and she had a word in Ivan's ear. He's not exactly brimming with enthusiasm at the prospect of giving one of his countrymen up, but he says a debt is a debt, so he's agreed to do some digging for you."

Relief flooded through William's body. "That's great news, thanks."

"But he wants to hear a recording of the phone call first," Frank went on. "Were you able to make a copy?"

Kirill nodded and said, "It wasn't easy, but yes, I managed to copy the file to a USB."

"Do you want us to email it to you?" William asked.

"I'm trying to stay off the grid right now, so let's keep this as a physical transfer instead."

"You want us to drop the USB somewhere?"

"You're in McLean, right?"

"Yeah."

"How well do you know Fall's Church?"

"Well enough."

"Ever been to the Dogwood Tavern on West Broad Street?"

"Don't think so, but I'm sure the GPS'll find it for us."

"Go to the bar, ask for Martin, tell him Francesco sent you, give him the USB."

"Francesco?" William echoed.

Frank sighed. "Long story involving a Mossad team and a couple of kidnapped nuns. Don't ask."

William grinned and shook his head. "Anything else?"

"Nothing right now. You're gonna owe me, but let's talk about that when this is all done."

"You know I'm good for it."

"What about Kirill?" Frank asked. "He good for it as well?"

"Yes," Kirill immediately said. "As long as you don't need me to kill anyone or commit treason," he hastily added, no doubt thinking back on the warning he'd received from Bourne.

"Won't ever be that serious, no."

"Then I am definitely good for it."

"Great," Frank said. "You guys go deliver the goods, leave the rest of the process to me. I'll be in touch as soon as I know anything more."

A click signalled the end of the call.

William looked at his twin. "Guess that second beer'll have to wait. You navigate, I'll drive?"

********************

They heard nothing for almost a week, to the point they both began to worry something bad had happened to Frank. The following Thursday, they were once again sitting on Kirill's couch, once again drinking a couple of beers, and half-heartedly trying to watch the Canadiens at the Bruins.

"Have you ever been to Canada?" Kirill asked.

William nodded. "Twice to Ottawa for work, once to Toronto on vacation."

"What is it like?"

"Pretty much the same as the States, especially in the English-speaking regions. Clean, safe, civilized. Slightly hockey obsessed. More apologies, fewer guns. I would say not to go there in winter unless you know how to deal with snow, but you're from Moscow, so it probably wouldn't bother you much. Why're you asking?"

"Katenka and I were thinking of going to Montreal for the Grand Prix weekend in June."

"Never been there, but I hear it's nice. It's in the French-speaking region, though, so you might want to take a language dictionary with you."

Kirill's answer was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"You expecting someone?" William asked.

Kirill shook his head. "Catherine said she might come over once she is done at work, but she has a key, so she wouldn't knock." He rose from the couch, strode into the kitchen and pulled a handgun out of a drawer. "You stay here," he warned, holding the gun down at his side. "Let me go find out who it is."

He was back barely a minute later, no shots fired, looking confused, carrying a pizza box in his hands. "Apparently, we ordered a pizza," he said.

William scrunched his face. "Doesn't smell like pizza to me."

"No, it does not."

Kirill laid the box on the table and used the barrel of the gun to carefully raise the cardboard lid. Sure enough, there wasn't a slice of pizza in sight, but there was a large, brown envelope emblazoned with William's name.

William grabbed it and tore it open. He scanned through the handwritten note at the top, then for Kirill's benefit, read it aloud. "Ivan did some digging, and he thinks he's found your man. He doesn't know if the guy's still working for the SVR, but he could be, so you should tread carefully. He wishes you well, and considers his debt paid. Victoria says 'hi'."

He handed the letter to his brother and turned his attention to the stack of photos underneath. They were all of the same person—a tall, white, muscular male with blond hair, blue-grey eyes and a jagged scar down the side of his face.

Kirill glanced at the photos and sucked in his breath.

"What is it?" William asked.

"I _know_ this man," Kirill murmured, grabbing and flicking through the rest of the pile.

"From Zaslon?"

The Russian shook his head. "From even longer ago than that. When I was in the Army, I attended a winter survival training course at a base near Novosibirsk. He was one of the other participants. I remember the scar."

"Was he a Spetsnaz guy as well?"

"I assume so, but he was there as part of another unit, so I couldn't say for sure."

"Arkadiy Belogubets, forty-six, born and raised in Sarov, previously known as Arzamas-16," William read.

Kirill nodded. "Yes, that's him. I remember thinking it was an unusual name."

"Was he any good?"

"He finished the course in second place, so yes, he was."

"Who finished first?" William asked, suspecting he knew what the answer would be.

Kirill smirked. "Who do you think?"

Halfway through rolling his eyes, William suddenly froze in alarm. "Kir, do you think this guy remembers you?"

"I doubt it. The course was a long time ago."

"You remember him."

"Yes, but I have an excellent memory for faces, and the scar makes his more memorable than mine."

"Did you talk to him much? At the training course, I mean."

"It was a solo exercise, so we didn't interact at all while the training was underway. We might have swapped a few pleasantries after, once we were all back at the base. I don't recall. Why do you ask?"

"I don't like the idea that a guy who might be involved in framing me for treason is someone you used to know in your previous life."

"I would hardly say that I knew him. It is probably just a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences."

Kirill set the photos down to rummage through the other papers. He pulled out a summary page. "This bio says he resigned from Zaslon a couple of months after I joined. A year later, he moved to the United States. He now lives in Congress Heights, and works at an Irish pub on Seventh." He furrowed his brows. "I think I have been in that pub. There is a very attractive redhead behind the bar. She has a butterfly tattoo on her wrist, and one of the nicest racks I have ever seen."

William resisted the urge to smack his libidinous brother upside the head. "I'll bet you a year's salary this Belogubets guy's still working for the SVR."

"And I'll bet you a year's salary back he made no mention of his military or intelligence experience on his emigration application."

"The SVR'll have given him a nice, clean, well-documented cover story."

"If he had family here before he moved, would it have made the visa process quicker?" the younger brother asked.

"Not sure. Siblings _used_ to be able to sponsor someone for permanent resident status, but the government's changed the rules a couple of times since I last checked, so don't quote me on that."

"We should look into that."

"Maybe we should pay Gospodin Belogubets a visit," William proposed. "See if we can persuade him to talk on pain of exposing his past."

"Except that apart from this document, we have no proof of who or what he really is."

"He won't know that."

"Doesn't matter," Kirill said, vehemently shaking his head. "If his training was anywhere near as thorough as mine, he won't talk."

"Not even if I strap him to a chair and pull all of his fingernails out?"

At his sides, Kirill's fingers unconsciously twitched. "Not even if you break every single bone in his body."

William switched to another plan. "You think Belogubets has had any surveillance detection training?"

"I obviously don't know for sure, but that has never been Zaslon's role, so I doubt it. Why do you ask?"

"Was just thinking I could follow him when he leaves the bar, see where he goes from there. Been a while since I did any hands-on surveillance work."

"And it is not as if you have anything more productive to do with your time."

"True, plus, it'll keep my IA guard dogs busy. They can rack up some overtime hours watching me watching someone else."

********************

William's first four attempts at trailing Belogubets were a bust. Not because of any deficiencies in his surveillance techniques—he _had_ learned them from one of the best—more because they didn't pan out the way he preferred.

On his fifth attempt, he finally struck gold. This time, instead of walking one block south to hop onto a Green Line train, Belogubets left the pub on foot, his hands jammed into his pockets, a Nationals cap pulled low on his head, moving at a leisurely pace.

William waited for fifteen seconds, giving his target a decent start, then finished his coffee, dropped the empty cup in the bin and surreptitiously started his tail. He already knew a couple of Holcroft's junior people were following his own movements in turn. Not that he really cared. Unlike the Russian barman, _he_ had nothing illicit to hide.

He followed his target for almost an hour, north on Seventh, east on K then over Florida into the Trinidad district. Belogubets lived in Crescent Heights, down in the southeast end of the city, so he definitely wasn't going home.

William held back as the Russian approached a well-maintained, two-storey house at the end of an equally well-maintained row. The new arrival was quickly admitted; the owner obviously knew him well.

William made sure he was out of sight, then pulled out his phone to message his twin. _Can you check an address for me?_ he clumsily typed.

 _Of course_ , was Kirill's almost-instant reply.

William looked up, checking the name on the overhead sign, then carefully typed it into the phone, cursing as the app tried to apply the AutoCorrect.

 _Will ask Ruby's team to run it for me_ , Kirill advised. _Back soon_.

'Soon' was twenty minutes later.

 _Brat?_ was all Kirill's next message said.

 _Here_ , William quickly typed back. _You find something?_

 _That is an understatement_.

_What?_

_Not over the phone_. _You need to see this first-hand_.

William turned his wrist to look at his watch. It was coming up on three forty-five, so Kirill wasn't done for the day, which limited where and when they could meet. _Can you leave the office yet?_ he typed, knowing his brother would find a way.

As always, Kirill came through. _Told Steve I have family emergency_. _Putting my coat on now_. _Meet me at your place_.

 _Be there as soon as I can_ , William messaged back. _Let yourself in if you get there before me_.

He turned away from the terraced house and went to find himself a cab.

********************

Forty-five minutes later, he finally made it back to the house. Traffic on the three-ninety-five was a shit show at this time of day.

As he strode up to the door, he noticed Kirill's RSV4 parked at the edge of the drive. There was no sign of his wife's car, but it _was_ a Wednesday, so she was probably working late until she had to pick up the kids from their archery and karate lessons.

Archery. Christ. Where the hell had Andrew come up with _that_?

He found his brother in the kitchen, casually leaning against the fridge, arms folded across his chest, waiting for a pot of coffee to brew.

"So?" he demanded. "What did you find?" He wasn't in a patient mood—his future and freedom were on the line.

Kirill gestured at a folder lying on the island counter.

William grabbed it, flipped it open and scanned the contents of the first page. "House belongs to Xenia Kochetova," he murmured as he read. "Fifty-six, divorced, no kids." The next piece of information made his stomach jump into his throat. "Born and raised in Sarov, previously known as Arzamas-16."

"According to Wikipedia, Sarov is home to a nuclear research facility, which means it is a closed town," Kirill quietly explained. "Russians who don't live or work there would not be allowed in."

"It's too much of a coincidence. She and Belogubets _must_ be related."

"I have Ruby working on it. If there _is_ a connection, she will dig it out."

"Pity it's such a low-quality photo," William remarked, looking for similarities to Belogubets' face. "Makes it difficult to see if there's any family resemblance."

"Even if they don't look like each other, it does not mean they are not related."

"True."

"We are identical twins, and some of the people we work with do not think we look like each other," Kirill revealed with a grin.

"Is this where you make another one of your amazing jokes about my weight or my hair?"

Kirill blushed, his plan for fraternal teasing undone.

William scanned through the rest of the notes; there were no other bombshells or revelations. "Was this what you wanted me to see firsthand?" he asked. "The name of the person who lives in the house?"

"Look at the second page," his twin instructed. "There is something even better there."

The second page was Kochetova's rather chaotic employment record, assembled from her tax returns. Jesus. Was there an occupation the woman hadn't tried? "What am I looking for here?" William complained. "This is worse than reading furniture assembly instructions."

"Go to the earliest years right at the bottom of the page. Look at who she worked for back in the early nineties."

William slowly dragged a finger down the neatly printed rows. Towards the bottom of the page, he finally found what Kirill meant. "Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered.

"That is exactly what I said when I saw it, but in Russian instead of English."

William's stomach lurched again. "Xenia Kochetova used to be one of Robert and Amanda Stanton's nannies."

"They hired her back in ninety-two, while they were living in Vermont, just before their twin daughters were born. She moved to Washington with them in ninety-eight, but left their employment a few months later."

"Stanton won his Senate seat in ninety-eight, so yeah, that makes sense."

The coffee pot beeped.

As Kirill filled a pair of mugs, he said, "So I will repeat the question I asked you last week. Who have you angered recently who knows about your Russian connections and who is also extremely rich?"

"You're _seriously_ telling me you think Robert Stanton asked his daughters' Russian ex-nanny to get in touch with her possible ex-Zaslon relation to ask him to frame me for treason?"

Kirill held out a steaming cup. "You have a better theory?"

"But _why_?"

"Because you know what he did in Guatemala."

"That _still_ doesn't make any sense," William protested, accepting the mug. "If he's decided he doesn't trust me, even though I've kept my mouth shut, and he thinks he needs to do another round of cleaning, why not just have me killed instead? Why go to the trouble of having me framed? Especially since setting me up wasn't exactly a cheap operation. Two hundred grand's a chunk of money, even for someone as wealthy as Robert Stanton."

Kirill shrugged as he planted himself on a stool. "Maybe having you killed would have cost him three hundred grand instead."

"I'm not important enough for my death to be worth three hundred grand."

"Then maybe he simply wants revenge."

"What the hell for?"

"He managed to pin the blame for the deaths of those people on Dunning and Wilkes, so he was never charged with any crimes, but he _was_ politely encouraged to step down from the Vice President's office."

William snorted. "You could say 'encouraged', yeah. I would personally go with 'ordered on pain of being fired' myself."

"However the request was conveyed, it must have been an extremely humiliating experience for him. One day, he was the Vice President of the United States, the next day, he was nothing at all."

"And?"

"What if he has convinced himself that _you_ are responsible for the loss of his reputation and career?" Kirill proposed. "And now wishes to take his revenge by depriving you of yours in return?"

"I'm not the one who wiped out a village full of innocent people, then covered it up by murdering a dozen more. He ruined his own damn reputation and career. He didn't need any help from me."

"But you forget what kind of man he is."

"What, an asshole?"

"He _is_ an asshole," Kirill agreed. "But a rich, privileged, spoiled asshole. The kind of man who always gets what he wants, who does not understand what 'no' means, who never accepts responsibility for his mistakes, who always looks for someone else to blame whenever the shit hits the fan."

William pulled up a stool of his own. "Even if your theory's correct, and Stanton's behind the packs of cash, how the hell do I deal with it?" he asked. "I can't exactly lay all of this on Carrington and Holcroft's desks and ask them to check it out. If it means they'd re-open the Dunning file, it could potentially cause more problems than it solves. Treason's a _hell_ of a charge, but first-degree murder isn't much better. I could be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire."

Kirill paused to sip from his mug. "Do you trust anyone on the seventh floor enough to tell them the whole story? The truth about Cynthia's death and all?"

"Six months ago, I'd have said yes. But given what the Company's currently doing to Pamela Landy, right now, I'm not so sure."

"Not even Evelyn McNamara?"

William sighed and shook his head. "Not even Evelyn McNamara. I mean, I like her, and she's always done right by me, but I also know how ambitious she is, so I can't be sure of how she'd use the information."

"Then your only choice is to talk to Stanton. Confront him with what you know, tell him to tidy up the mess he has made or the Guatemala file goes to the editor of the Washington Post."

William took a deep gulp of his coffee, thinking his options through. Kirill was right. If he wanted this mess to go away with as little hassle as possible, confronting Stanton with the data was probably the cleanest approach. Another thought popped into his head. "Think Stanton even knows who and what Belogubets is?" he asked.

"I doubt very much that Kochetova even knows. The old girl probably thinks Arkadiy is just very good at solving certain types of problems."

"People problems," William said. Something they'd both always had an aptitude for themselves.

"Do you know where the Stantons live?" Kirill asked.

"They never moved out of town after he stepped down from the Vice Presidency, so they're still up in Chevy Chase. Why do you ask?"

"Put down your coffee," Kirill instructed, quickly doing the same with his own. "And go fetch the Belogubets file. It is time for us to go for a drive."

********************

Kirill made an admiring sound. "That is a very impressing house."

William examined the complex design of the white and yellow mini-palace. The building was impressive all right, but in his not-so-humble opinion, _not_ in a pleasing way. "Bit too overdone for my tastes," he said, wrinkling his nose very slightly. "The inside probably looks like Versailles."

"If I owned a mansion like that, and I had Robert Stanton's cash, I would also decorate it to look like Versailles," Kirill revealed. "I would have as much marble and gold as my money could buy."

William's lips twitched. "What, and mirrors on all of the bedroom ceilings?"

"You say that as if it would be a bad thing."

"It would, Kir, trust me. From a safety perspective, if nothing else."

Kirill twisted around in his seat to scan the length of the tree-lined road. "I don't see any cops or Secret Service teams."

"Stanton's been out of office for more than six months, and nobody's expressed any interest in killing him, so they're all long gone."

"He doesn't have Secret Service protection for life?"

"Nope."

"That is one less thing to worry about, then. He can't order his bodyguards to shoot us if he doesn't like what we have to say."

"That's one way to look at it, yeah."

Kirill gestured at the house. "Do you think he is actually at home?"

"Let's go find out."

William switched off the engine, pulled on the brake, opened the door and clambered out. He paused for a moment to check his surroundings, looking for signs of his Company tail, then strode up to the elaborate gate and pressed the button on the intercom unit.

A few seconds later, it crackled to life. "Stanton residence," a woman politely announced.

"Evening, ma'am," William said. "I'm here to see Mister Stanton."

"Is he expecting you?" the woman enquired.

"No, ma'am, it's an unscheduled call."

The woman sighed. "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid Mister Stanton doesn't accept unscheduled guests," she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "You'll have to call his assistant to set up an appointment."

"But he _is_ at home, right?"

"Yes, sir, he is."

"Could you at least go give him a message for me?"

A pause, then the woman cautiously said, "I suppose I could do that, yes. As long as it's not too complicated," she quickly added. "I wouldn't want to get the details wrong."

"Could you tell him Mister Cooper is here, and that I need to talk to him about his trip to Guatemala?"

"That's all?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's all. Don't worry, Mister Stanton will understand."

"I'll give him the message just as soon as I can."

"Thank you, ma'am."

The speaker went dead.

William stuck his hands in his pockets and waited to see what Stanton would do. A few minutes later, he was kicking pebbles along the road and beginning to think he'd pushed too hard. Stanton was probably calling the cops, or even worse, another one of his hitman friends.

A beep on the horn drew his attention back to the car. Kirill was gesturing at the gates, which were slowly and silently swinging apart. William jogged back to the car, slid smoothly behind the wheel and once the gates were fully open, carefully steered them into the drive.

As he pulled up in front of the house, he saw Robert Stanton waiting for them on the front steps. To say he looked extremely annoyed was the understatement of the year.

"We do this however you want," Kirill said. "You should have someone to watch your six, but if you would rather speak to him on your own, I will wait for you in the car."

William shook his head. "We do this together, or not at all."

He slid out of the car again; Kirill did the same on the other side.

Stanton met them on the drive. "You better have a damn good reason for being here, Cooper," he said in a low but threatening voice. "Because the last time the two of us talked, I thought I made it _abundantly_ clear I never wanted to see or speak to you again." As his gaze turned on Kirill, he frowned. "And who the fuck's he? You got the science nerds at Langley running some kind of cloning thing?"

" _He_ is my younger twin brother, Kirill," William calmly replied. "Is there somewhere more private we can talk?"

Stanton nodded tersely and gestured for them to follow him into the house. "Let's go to my study. Nobody will disturb us there."

As they walked through the massive house, Kirill flashed him a shit-eating grin. The spacious interior was indeed decorated in the style of Versailles. Except for Stanton's private study, towards the rear of the upper floor, which followed a simpler and more masculine theme.

A photo of Stanton in his dress blues was prominently displayed on one wall—William suppressed the urge to punch the photo right out of the frame.

Stanton waved them in, slammed the door and bluntly asked, "What the fuck do you want?"

William's answer was just as direct. "I want you to stop trying to frame me for treason and leave me the fuck alone."

"The hell are you talking about?" Stanton shot back, confusion spreading across his face.

"Three weeks ago, the CIA received an anonymous call warning them I've been passing classified files to the Russians in exchange for large amounts of cash."

"Still not seeing why that's my problem. And given what you did to your boss, I wouldn't be shocked if the charges were true."

"We think the phone call came from this man," William explained, ignoring Stanton's vindictive slur. He opened his file and threw a photo of Arkadiy Belogubets onto the desk. "He used to be Russian special forces, but now he lives down in Crescent Heights. You know him?"

Stanton frowned and shook his head. "Never seen him before in my life."

William swore under his breath. He was pretty good at reading people, and there was no sign of guilt in Stanton's face. Could a man who was known for being a lying, cheating sack of shit _actually_ be telling the truth? "What about this woman, then?" William continued, bringing out a photo from Kochetova's file. "You know her?"

This time, an altogether different reaction. Confusion again for a couple of seconds, quickly replaced by recognition.

Stanton nodded. "It's been a while since I last saw her, and this is a pretty recent photo, so I almost didn't recognize her, but yeah, I know her. She was the nanny we hired in ninety-two just before our daughters were born. Damned if I can remember her name."

"Xenia Kochetova."

"Kochetova, yeah, that's her. Didn't get on with her myself, but the girls adored her. They were heartbroken when she left."

"Why _did_ she leave?"

Stanton perched on the edge of his desk. "A bunch of reasons, actually. There was bad blood between her and our German housekeeper, Magda. Some bullshit to do with the war. Then we had problems with her security clearance because of where she was from. Then she met a guy, and asked to switch to a different job so she wouldn't need to live in at the house. Mandy wasn't happy with that, so we eventually decided to let her go."

Who is Mandy?" Kirill asked.

"Amanda, my wife."

In somebody's coat, a text notification pinged.

Kirill pulled his phone from his pocket to scan the message he'd just received. When he was finished, he had a more provocative question for their host. "Mister Stanton, did you know that Xenia Kochetova is the older, half-sister of Arkadiy Belogubets? And that she sponsored his application for permanent residence when he moved to the States six years ago?"

William made a mental note to order Ruby and her assistant a _very_ expensive bunch of flowers. Talk about stepping in at just the right time?

Stanton had the decency to look alarmed. "I see where you're going with this," he said to Kirill, nodding tersely. "You think I hired this Russian guy to frame your brother for treason, using our former nanny as a go-between."

"I do, yes."

"And why the fuck would I ever do that?" Stanton thundered. He turned to address William again. "We made a deal that day out at Evanston, Cooper, one which I have never had _any_ interest in breaking. So, whoever's causing this trouble for you, it sure as hell isn't me. I haven't seen or spoken to Xenia Kochetova for the best part of fifteen years."

William furrowed his brows and sighed. It had seemed like such a credible case, but Stanton's objections were too believable not to be true. He looked to his twin for inspiration on what to say next, but Kirill's expression was just as dark.

They paused as somebody knocked at the door.

Before Stanton could say a word, the door swung open, admitting a slender, striking, middle-aged woman with ash-blonde hair and gleaming blue eyes. Based on her bearing, mode of dress and her age, and on the fact she'd been perfectly willing to walk right in, she could only be Stanton's wife. She smiled at her spouse. "Robert, dear, if we're going to make that reservation, we'll need to leave in..." she broke off as she noticed the guests. For the briefest of moments, her face flashed with hatred and rage, before it settled back into a rigidly sunny smile. "We'll need to leave in twenty minutes," she concluded.

Stanton did his best to smile back. "I'll be right there, honey," he said. His expression soured as he turned on the twins. "These gentlemen are on the way out."

Sighing, William collected his files. He'd said what he'd come here to say, unfortunately, with little result. There was nothing for him to do now but retreat as politely as he'd arrived, and wait for Holcroft to finish her work.

His brother had other ideas.

"I am sorry, but we are not leaving yet," Kirill calmly announced. "Not until you agree to clean up William's criminal charges."

"How the hell can I clean up something I'm not even involved in?" Robert Stanton exclaimed.

" _You_ are not involved, Mister Stanton, but somebody else in your family is."

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"I think you need to ask your wife when she last talked to your former nanny," Kirill explained. "I am beginning to suspect it is not as long ago as you think."

Stanton's first response was to laugh, dismissing Kirill's outlandish suspicions. Then, as he saw his wife's face, the laughter stopped and his eyes went wide. "Mandy, honey, what the _hell_ did you do?" he whispered.

She was the picture of innocence for a moment, until the mask faltered and slipped, then the venomous hatred reappeared.

The change in tone was so sudden and shocking, William actually took a step back.

"What you _should_ have done a long time ago," Amanda told her astonished spouse, digging her perfectly manicured nails into the palms of her hands. "And would have done, if you'd ever had anything resembling a spine."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Stanton asked for the second time.

"I'm talking about how you never took your revenge for what this asshole did to your career," she said, stabbing a finger at William's face.

William snorted in shock. "How the hell is what happened to your husband's career anything to do with me?"

She turned on him, her blue eyes flashing. "Because if you had followed your goddamn orders and put a bullet in Frank Moses' head, Cynthia and Alexander's plan would have worked. Robert would be running for President now, instead of giving after-dinner speeches to hedge fudge managers and playing golf with plastic surgeons."

"Wait a minute," Stanton stuttered. "Are you telling me you _knew_ what Dunning and Wilkes were doing?"

"Well, of _course_ I knew!" Amanda snapped. "Who do you think helped them to pull the whole plan together?"

"You _told_ them to kill all those people?"

"Those _people_ ," she almost spat, "all knew what happened in Guatemala. They needed to be taken care of. I couldn't risk having the truth come out once you'd launched your presidential campaign."

"You know what happened in Guatemala?" Robert Stanton asked in the quietest and most timorous voice William had ever heard.

Amanda nodded. "A few years ago, I figured out that you'd done something wrong, something that could wreck your career. When Alexander came to the house to warn you about the reporter from the New York Times, I talked to him, and he told me the rest."

"But... how did you figure the basics out?"

"The same way I figured out you were having a fling with Anna McConnell," the now furious wife explained. "And the same way I figured out you once allowed one of your Secret Service guys to take the blame for an accident where _you_ were to blame. You talk in your sleep, Robert. Far too much for your own good."

"Someone has a guilty conscience," William murmured to his twin.

"Someone _should_ have a guilty conscience," Kirill murmured back. "Because someone has been a very naughty boy."

William tried not to grin as a line from a Monty Python movie suddenly popped into his head...

"Will the two of you please shut the fuck up?" the subject of their discussion snapped.

"Not until you deal with your wife," Kirill angrily shot back.

William couldn't help but cringe. As a general rule, Kirill was better with women than him, but when it came to powerful, Washington wives, his brother still had a great deal to learn.

This was probably going to hurt.

"Not until he _deals with his wife_?" Amanda Stanton angrily repeated. She barked out an incredulous laugh. "What, like he should take me next door, put me over his knee and _spank_ me, tell me I've been a silly girl, that I should leave the difficult problems to him, not think about anything other than handbags and shoes in case it puts a terrible strain on my tiny, feeble, female mind?"

Kirill huffed and rolled his eyes, but Amanda Stanton kept right on talking.

"Do you have _any_ goddamn idea how much I've given up for this asshole and his precious career? How much bullshit I've waded through for him over the last twenty-five years? The chicken dinners, the puking babies, the old men with wandering hands, the Town Halls, the telethons, the State Fairs, and Jesus, all that time we spent in Church pretending to give a damn about God? And then your precious, goddamn brother blows all my hard work to hell, just because he couldn't bring himself to kill one useless, bald, _stupid_ man?"

She'd worked up a real head of steam—even her husband couldn't silence her now. Not that someone as weak as Robert Stanton would ever be brave enough to try.

"I was supposed to be the next First Lady of the United States," Amanda Stanton almost sobbed, "not a candidate for The Real Housewives of Chevy Chase. I was going to help Robert run a whole country, and look at where the hell I am now. Now, the only thing I run is a goddamn, fucking book club." As she concluded, she pounded one of her fists on the door.

"My wife runs a book club," William very calmly said.

"Oh, yeah? And where the hell's she while you're running around DC with your brother?" Amanda demanded. She raised a hand to wave him off. "Actually, don't bother responding, because I'm pretty sure I already know. She's at home looking after the kids and doing all the stuff that needs to be done, but that you've decided you can't or won't do, because you're either too goddamn lazy, or too goddamn busy focusing on your precious career to worry about what she needs or wants."

She was close to the edge, so William worded his answer with care. "It's true that my wife has given a lot more to our marriage than me," he said. "And it's also true that I don't help with the house and the kids as much as I should."

"That's what I thought. You career assholes are all as bad as each other."

"Maybe we are," William acknowledged. "But you know what?"

"What?"

"No matter how badly I treated her, or how little I helped with the kids and the house, my wife would never, _ever_ express her frustration by arranging the deaths of a dozen innocent people."

"Well, aren't you a _lucky_ boy?"

William nodded. "Now you mention it, yes, I am."

Tempers subsided, silence reigned, everyone took a few calming breaths.

William turned to Stanton and said, "I don't care how the two of you do it, but I want my name cleared by the end of the night. At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, either I'm going back into work, or I'm calling the editor of the Washington Post to tell them the former Vice President's wife hired a Russian intelligence agent to frame a CIA Section Chief for treason."

But Stanton wasn't down and out yet. "You go anywhere _near_ the Post, I'll tell the Company you shot Cynthia Wilkes."

"Go right ahead," was William's weary reply. "I threw away the gun and the shell, and Cynthia's brother had her cremated, so the physical proof is all long gone. It'll be your word against mine, and I'm on the rise, while your credibility's not what it used to be since you had to step down. And remember we made a deal, so if you tell anyone I shot Cynthia Wilkes, I'll also give the Washington Post the whole Guatemala file." He glared at Stanton, daring the man to do his worst, but Stanton very wisely decided he had nothing more to say.

William looked at his younger brother and jerked his chin towards the door. Their work here was done; it was time to go home.

"Enjoy your evening out together," Kirill said to their furious hosts. "I am sure you will have a wonderful time."

"Get the hell out of my house," Stanton said. "And if you know what's good for you, don't _ever_ come back."

This time, the two of them did exactly as they were told.

********************

To William's relief, the call came in shortly after eight, while he and Michelle were nestled together on the couch, listening to some classical music, working their way through a large bowl of chips and drinking a glass of their favourite wine. Kirill had left an hour before, surreptitiously fleeing the scene before Tatiana asked him to read her yet another bedtime story.

"Who was that?" Michelle asked as he returned to his seat.

" _That_ was Evelyn McNamara."

She sat up straight. "Please tell me she had some good news about your suspension?"

William nodded. "The person who made the accusation just admitted they made the whole business up. My name's been cleared and my suspension's been dropped." Not the whole truth, but truthful enough. "They want me back in at work tomorrow."

"Oh, honey, that's fantastic," she gushed, leaning in to give him a hug.

"Thank you," he murmured when she finally pulled away.

"For what?"

"For never once believing the charges against me were true."

She smiled, took his face in her hands and gave him a gentle, lingering kiss. "Lord knows you have your faults," she said, stroking her thumbs along his chin. "But if there's one thing you'll never be, William Cooper, it's a traitor to the United States."

He remembered Amanda Stanton's wrath.

A traitor, no. An imperfect husband and father, yes. But unlike some of his other shortcomings, that was a problem he could address. "Speaking of faults, not being at work for the last couple of weeks has given me plenty of time to think."

"Oh, yeah? What about?"

He drew in a breath and soldiered on. "About the fact that I'm not really pulling my weight in this marriage, and specifically, that I'm too quick to leave you to deal with the house and the kids."

Michelle shrugged. "That was the arrangement we agreed to after Andrew was born. We both knew your job was going to need a lot of your time, and it wouldn't have been fair to ask you to deal with half of the chores at home, considering I wasn't working."

"But things have changed a lot in the last three or four years," William pointed out. "The kids are at school during the day, and you've gone back to work full-time. My career's very important to me, and it's going to continue to need a lot of my time, but I shouldn't use that as an excuse to always leave you to carry the can. It's not like you have the least demanding job in the universe, either."

"So, what are you suggesting we do?"

"For starters, I need to step up and do more. Sometimes, I don't help out with stuff at home because I _am_ actually up to my eyeballs in work, but sometimes, it's because I'm being a lazy asshole instead. There's no excuse for that, and it needs to stop."

"Can I hold you to that?" Michelle asked, smiling softly.

"Absolutely. If you think I'm trying to pull a fast one on you, I want you to call me out on it. Remind me of this conversation, tell me to pull my head out of my ass and do whatever I'm damn well told."

"I can do that."

"Oh, I know you can."

"You said 'for starters', which implies that there's more. What else?"

"Our jobs take up most of our days, so I want whatever free time we have to be for us and the kids as much as it can." And yes, maybe the dog as well. Boomer was a loving and loyal but slightly neglected pet.

Michelle sighed. "Yeah, that would be nice. So, what's your solution?"

"You're working full-time, which means you're earning full-time as well."

"And?"

" _And_ it's a very good wage. You earn in a week almost as much as I earn in a month."

She narrowed her eyes. "You after my hard-earned money, Cooper?"

"Course I am. For richer or poorer, remember?" He grinned, then shrugged. "I just think maybe we should use some of that massive paycheck of yours to hire someone to do all the stuff around the house that always seems to get in the way of us spending our evenings and weekends together."

"What, like mowing the lawn?" she tartly said, referring to his least favourite and most frequently 'forgotten' chore.

He nodded and smiled. "Mowing the lawn, painting the deck, walking the dog, cleaning the kitchen, folding the laundry, shopping for food, cooking the meals."

"I _like_ cooking the meals."

"Keep cooking the meals, then. You know how much I love what you make, so you won't hear any whining from me. But only because it's something you _want_ to do, not because it's something you think you _have_ to do as part of some deal. Because that's absolutely not the case."

She swirled her wine around in her glass.

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

"Not sure. Why don't you leave it with me for a couple of days, let me mull over the pros and the cons?"

Spoken like the lawyer she was.

He flipped her a mini-salute. "You're the boss."

She smiled and stifled a massive yawn.

"Busy day?" William asked, thinking back on the length of his own. Jesus. Had it really only been a few hours ago he'd followed Belogubets to his half-sister's house?

Michelle nodded. "Three separate rounds of very angry negotiations with seven lawyers in the room and another three on the phone, so yeah, you could say that."

"Did you manage to sort it all out?"

"Took some diplomacy, but eventually, yeah."

He laid a comforting hand on her thigh. "Well, the kids are in bed, and there's no reason for us to stay up late."

"Uh huh?" she said, yawning again.

"So, why don't you finish your wine, then I'll take you upstairs and tuck you in?"

********************

The following week, William was back at his brother's apartment (with his other half's consent), trying to summon the enthusiasm for the Predators at the Canucks.

"Did I tell you that Katenka and I have booked our vacation to Montreal?" Kirill asked as Luongo blocked an attempt on his goal.

"You didn't, no."

"We fly up on the Thursday morning, fly back on the Tuesday night, so it should be a decent break." The Russian gestured at his slumbering pet. "Will you look after Morana for me while we are gone?"

William sighed, resigning himself to cat-sitting duties. "I suppose so, yeah."

"I will leave out everything she needs, and I will feed her before I go, so it will really only be for four days."

"You sure you're ready for it?" William asked. "Going on vacation with Kate, I mean, not leaving me to look after your pet." Although, given his aversion to cats, and Morana's newly-developed aversion to him, the latter might end up causing them far more grief than the former...

Kirill frowned. "What is there to be ready for? We are only going on vacation together, not getting married and having a child."

"When both of you still have your own place, going on a vacation together _can_ be a make or break deal," William pointed out. "You're forced to confront each other's terrible habits, so you either end up coping with them and in it for good, or hating each other's guts."

"Are you speaking from personal experience there?"

William nodded. "The woman I dated before Michelle. Her name was Tamara. The two of us went up to Boston for a few days, it didn't go well. She was messy as hell, and I kept trying to hang up the towels and make the bed with hospital corners. We ended up fighting about it at Fenway Park, of all places. She dumped me at the top of the sixth, came back to DC without me, left me behind to pay for the room."

"Did you ever see her again?"

"In a bar on K Street six months later, but I was there to have dinner with Mike, so I didn't go out of my way to say hello."

"Speaking of people being dumped," Kirill started with a grin, "did you hear the Stantons have filed for divorce?"

Another nod. "Hmm, yes, I did. Can't for the _life_ of me imagine why," William murmured, grinning back.

"She is going to take him to the cleaners so badly I almost feel sorry for him."

"I don't. The guy's a lying, cheating, backstabbing, murderous, traitorous piece of shit. He deserves everything he damn well gets."

"At least he still has his amazing career," Kirill added, not even trying to keep his face straight.

"Don't assume he's a total write-off just yet. The Stantons are natural-born survivors. A c-note says he'll abandon DC, find a state-level job in Vermont, start from scratch, build his career all over again." Talking about the Stanton's divorce made William remember something else. "By the way, I don't think I ever properly thanked you for what you did last week when we were up in Chevy Chase," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Putting two and two together, realizing the plot was actually all Amanda's scheme," William explained. He puffed out an embarrassed sigh. "Still can't believe I didn't see it myself. In hindsight, it should've been as obvious as the sun in the sky that a setup which relied on a nanny would've come from a woman instead of a man."

"If it makes you feel any better, it almost didn't occur to me, either," Kirill confessed. "And sometimes, it is easier to see a solution when you can take a few steps away from the problem. Which you usually can, before you go getting huffy on me, but this particular problem impacted you in a personal way, which made taking those steps very difficult for you."

"I guess so, yeah."

"So, don't be too hard on yourself."

William could see the punchline coming. "Cus that's always been your job, right?"

"Who would keep you in line if I did not?"

William smirked, then his tone turned solemn again. "But seriously, Kir. Thank you. God only knows what would have happened to me by now if you hadn't figured it out."

They tensed as someone knocked on the door, then relaxed as they realized who it would be. It was time to eat and have a few drinks, not time to kill or be killed.

William reached for the wallet he'd dropped on the coffee table. "You grab the napkins and beers," he told his twin as he headed into the hall. "It's my turn to pay for the food." Paying for dinner was the least he could do to thank his sibling for his support.

To William's surprise, when he opened the door, it wasn't the Papa John's delivery man. It was Ivan Simonov, wearing a shockingly colourful burgundy suit, holding two pizza boxes in his right hand and a bottle of Tovaritch in his left.

Neither of them said a word.

"Good evening, Agent Cooper. May I come in?" the ex-KGB man eventually asked.

William stepped back, pulled the front door all the way open and waved the older man into the hall. "Of course, yes, where are my manners? Come in, please."

Kirill appeared at the end of the hall, a wad of napkins jammed under his arm, a bottle of beer clasped in each hand. When he saw the man walking towards him in front of his brother, he instantly switched to Russian and said, "You must be Ivan Sergeievich."

"I am indeed," Ivan acknowledged in the same tongue. "And based on the uncanny resemblance to Agent Cooper, you must be Kirill Alexandrovich Orlov, formerly of the SVR and the FSB, more recently of the CIA." He stepped around Kirill into the kitchen to lay his offerings on the table.

"Can I bring you something to drink?" Kirill politely enquired, seemingly unconcerned that Ivan knew all about his past. "I have Golden Pheasant and Yarpivo, and a bottle of Stolichnaya as well. All perfectly chilled, of course." He waved at the vodka Ivan had brought. "Or, we could open your bottle instead."

"If the two of you are having a beer, then I will have a beer as well. We can always open the vodka later."

Drinks were dispensed, pizza was served, William switched the hockey game off. No great loss, since he and Kirill didn't much care for either team.

They settled around the living room table, William and Kirill claiming the couch, Ivan in the Ikea recliner. On her cat stand in the kitchen, Morana roused herself from her nap and raised her tiny, curious head. She fixed her luminous eyes on Ivan, but otherwise showed no inclination to visit with the unusual guest.

"So, Ivan, what brings you here tonight?" the older brother asked.

"Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood," Ivan breezily replied. "I thought perhaps you would not mind if I stopped in to say hello."

"Just in the neighbourhood, sure."

The next question came from Kirill. "I assume you did not do something terrible to our Papa John's delivery man?"

The older man shook his head. "I can assure you he is safe and unharmed. I paid for the pizzas, furnished him with a generous tip and sent him happily on his way."

"Not _too_ generous, I hope," Kirill muttered. "I may order from the same place again, and I don't want their delivery people getting ideas."

William sighed and rolled his eyes. "You'll have to forgive my brother, Ivan. He hasn't fully adjusted to living in the United States, so niceties like saying thank you and leaving a decent tip are sometimes still a mystery to him."

The brother in question flipped him the bird.

"I am actually here to pass along some very interesting news," Ivan announced.

"Oh, yeah?" William said, perking up. "What's that?"

"Arkadiy Belogubets has decided to move back to Russia."

"Really?"

Ivan nodded. "He caught a flight out of Dulles this morning. Bound for Amsterdam, I think. Probably a good idea, since I understand the FBI was about to issue a warrant for his arrest."

"That would have made life very difficult for him," William said as tactfully as he could.

Ivan had no such concerns. "The man was a fool," he bluntly proclaimed. "A fool in love with violence and money. Regardless of who he was really working for, he should have known better than to involve himself in some silly, American housewife's quarrel."

"Then you know the whole story."

"As of eleven o'clock this morning, yes."

"Thank you," William said in a sombre tone. "Whether Belogubets was a fool or not, it can't have been easy for you to give one of your countrymen up."

"As I explained in my earlier note, a debt is a debt. But now it has been paid in full."

"Yes, it has."

Kirill spoke up again. "It is strange, really, how it all worked out in the end."

"What do you mean?" Ivan asked.

"We thought the person behind the plan was playing on William's Russian connections, or that it had something to do with me, since Arkadiy and I had previously met, if only very briefly. In the end, the Russian angle meant absolutely nothing at all. It was simply a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences," William sourly complained.

Ivan frowned. "Really? And why is that?"

"In my experience, what you _think_ is a coincidence is actually an enemy plan in disguise."

"Agent Cooper, with all due respect, you are a very cynical man."

"Course I am," William confessed. "I spent eight years in the Marines, and now I work for the CIA."

"My own experience of coincidence is somewhat different from yours."

"How so?" Kirill enquired.

Ivan smiled, then looked at each twin in turn. "For example, did you know that I was born in June 1946 in the Novokosino district of Moscow?"

Both brothers shook their heads.

"And that I grew up in the same apartment building as your father?"


End file.
